


this truth of love (i submit to thee)

by speakmefair



Category: Richard II - Shakespeare
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, RSC compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-25
Updated: 2014-01-25
Packaged: 2018-01-09 23:14:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1151944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speakmefair/pseuds/speakmefair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Richard II and his assassination.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this truth of love (i submit to thee)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [angevin2](https://archiveofourown.org/users/angevin2/gifts).



She's never asked anyone for anything.

She's never asked any of _them_ for anything.

But then she's never called them by that heart-acid name, either.

Richard's _minions_.

He hears that Henry uses it. He hears Henry _use_ it. He hears how Henry uses it to make the court pity Richard, so easily fooled by flattery. Hears how he used it even before Flint, a pejorative, a new foul-breathed disgrace. 

He's been called the King's cunt before, and never felt his mouth shrivel as he did on that first hearing of it from Henry's patted-dry lips.

He's asked (had asked) once or twice (in the early days, assured of a King's goodwill), if they were calling his mouth a cunt, since that was what he used for praise; he's gained unambiguous gestures for his response and given them back with two straight fingers and a gesture with them that could never be misconstrued.

But now that he hears Henry, dulcetly reasonable Henry – when he hears him mimic and mock those who were only ever among the dwindling few who took their deposed king for what he was and learned to love him even for his inadequacies --

When he hears the new Prince of Wales laugh at his working syllables, his struggling sibilants –

When he sees pity in the eyes of Northumberland's hot-headed young son, who would challenge him more quickly and more easily (and does) than the poor fool would move toward comprehension of what has become treason --

No, Edward can't make his throat move into soft sound.

Not at that.

**

He's a traitor, and Isabel's alive, and when she asks to speak to him he thinks he deserves all he gets.

Blame.

The weight of her grief on his thick shoulders.

Her queen's tears, her woman's tears, ah, he deserves it all.

He is not there to listen to her thoughts, though, at least not in the way he expected.

For she asks him for only one thing.

"Kill him for me," she whispers. "Kill him for the love I am no longer allowed to feel. Kill him for me."

Edward who was once Aumerle takes the knife.

"Love him well," Isabel whispers.

Her silks move behind her like autumn air, a little too rich in colour, a little too heavily perfumed in their trailing breeze.

"I always have," Edward says to the empty room.

**

It is a good knife.

Edward is glad of that. It is a good knife.

He wishes there were a Hector, to drag around the tomb that will never now be built.

He wishes there were a Paris. A poisoned arrow. A death foretold for him and only him.

He wishes, more than anything, that it was he who had been allowed to play Patroclus.

And die first.

Even without his Achilles-revenge, even without dark blood and spilt entrails; even as he is, humbled and torn to shreds and made into a dissolving nothing and less than that nebulous nothing; now that he is new-made, everyday-wearing made into a sometimes-man who is not even a traitor; now that he has sued for forgiveness, well. Even without a corpse-clogged river and the wrath of gods against him, he wishes that.

**

He cries a little, later, when he remembers that only cold water takes away bloodstains.

He doesn't mind the blood.

It's the last warmth he'll ever get from Richard's all too-bleeding heart.


End file.
